PERHAPS it says a lot about the current state of British athletics that the focus of attention at last weekend's Olympic trials was an American.

Err, sorry, I meant a Briton. Because that's what 400m runner Malachi Davis is. And he has been since Thursday.

Attitudes to "foreigners" are a little confused in a country with more than its fair share of Roman, Scandinavian, German and French blood, where the royal family is part-German - with a generous dose of Greek thrown in - and our sporting heroes include Lennox Lewis, Greg Rusedski and Sven Goran Eriksson.

There's no such thing as 100 per cent British, so perhaps people shouldn't get so up-tight about the likes of Davis showing an interest in running for this country.

But while it is possible for some sportsmen to convincingly claim they have a genuine affinity to a country they were not born in, it's not quite so easy for Davis.

This time last week Davis was, legally speaking, American. It wasn't until Thursday that he became a proud owner of a British passport, courtesy of a London-born mother who emigrated years before he was born.

Yet by Saturday the 26-year-old was running in the AAA Championships and looks set to wear a British vest in the 4x400m and possibly the individual event in Athens.

So what has prompted this sudden surge of national pride in Davis? Could it be that as only the 26th-best 400m runner in America he had as much chance of making the US Olympics team as Rusedski has of passing himself off as a pearly king on the set of EastEnders?

Davis saw the Union Jack as a flag of convenience and, with an Olympic-standard athlete desperate to run for them, UK Athletics were not about to turn him away.

It's not the fact that Davis is about as British as mom's apple pie that has wound people up.

After all, you don't often hear football fans bleating when Owen Hargreaves - Canadian-born with a Welsh mum and living in Germany - gets picked in the Euro 2004 squad.

It's more the fact that at Eastlands at the weekend there were hundreds of athletes who were desperate to represent their country. And one American desperate to go to the Olympics.

You get the impression that if Davis had missed out on selection, he would be scouring his family tree right now to find out if there were any other countries short on decent 400m runners.

It's not Davis' nationality that has got the public hot under the collar - it's the blatant cynicism he has shown in changing it.